Equity, Effectiveness, Efficiency:
A common purpose for citizens, industry and Government

By David Fleming

Domestic Tradable Quotas (DTQs) are a scheme for rationing, and rapidly reducing, the use of fossil fuels, by sharing out access to fuel among every individual and organisation in the economy. They are intended as an effective, efficient and equitable means of:

1. reducing carbon emissions in the context of climate change.

2. fuel rationing in the likely event of deepening scarcities in the supply of oil and gas (the oil peak).

The scheme is designed to be equally suited to both these purposes, providing ways of regulating demand for fuel both for climate reasons, and fuel supply reasons, as required. It includes all participants – consumers, industry, Government departments – within a single market, to which they all have access and on which they can buy and sell carbon units within a single Carbon Budget. The Budget is a guarantee that targets requiring the political economy as a whole to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels will actually be achieved.

Other names Other names used for energy rationing systems include: personal carbon allowances, carbon rations, tradable permits, carbon rationing, etc, and there is a spelling variant: "domestic tradeable quotas". Sometimes these names refer to precisely the model of DTQs as described here; sometimes they don't. DTQs go further than personal carbon allowances, because they are not just for citizens; they are for every institution in the economy - companies, traders, schools, hospitals, the Government... They are "national carbon allowances". For a discussion of personal carbon allowances and other systems, and a comparison with DTQs, see Memorandum on DTQs

DTQs: the bookEnergy and The Common Purpose: by David Fleming. This is an expanded and illustrated description of DTQs, intended for everyone from citizens and students to policy-makers.
ISBN 0-9550849-1-1. Price £5. (Can be downloaded for free or purchased in print copy direct from the publisher: The Lean Economy Connection).

Contact: David Fleming(Author of this website)Update - David Fleming passed away in late 2010. His legacy and posthumously published books are curated by The Fleming Policy Centre.